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Monday-Friday from noon-1:00, Tom Hall and his guests are talking about what's on your mind, and what matters most to Marylander's, the latest news, local and national politics, education and the environment, popular culture and the arts, sports and science, race and religion, movies and medicine. We welcome your questions and comments. E-mail us at midday@wypr.org
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Joining Tom in the studio now are two long-time Maryland educators and two of the state’s leading advocates for fostering improvements in student behavior and community-building through a social-science approach called “Restorative Practices.”
David Hornbeck is the founding chair and executive director of the non-profit Voices for Restorative Schools. He served as Maryland’s Superintendent of Schools from 1976 to 1988, and later spent 6 years as Philadelphia's Superintendent of Schools.
David is also the father of Tom's other guest today, Matt Hornbeck. For the past two decades, Matt has served as principal of the Hampstead Hill Academy, a pre-K thru 8th grade charter school in Baltimore. HHA is one of a group of six charters run by the Baltimore Curriculum Project within the City School system. It’s one of the system’s top-performing elementary and middle schools…and it’s also one of the schools where restorative practices have been used to build an inclusive student community and to reduce conflict.
A new initiative seeks to jump-start one of Baltimore’s biggest and most controversial redevelopment projects. The 28-acre State Center site was the subject of development efforts and lawsuits that go back more than 20 years. Could a new plan, backed by Gov. Wes Moore, see wider use for the property?
Maryland's Secretary of the Department of General Services Atif Chaudry joins Midday to share the latest.
Maryland is among the top 10 states with the largest spike in reports of online scams and fraud in recent years. According to an analysis of FTC data by the investment website BrokerChooser, Maryland saw a 53 percent increase in reports over the past 5 years.
Shari Greene joins Midday to discuss the work of the Older and Disabled Persons Unit in the Economic Crimes Division at the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office. You can find information about contacting her office on their website.
Plus, we hear from WYPR host Raquel Razan about her own run in with a scammer, and what she learned from the experience.
And then, two experts share tips and insights on how to protect yourself and your loved ones from frauds and scam.
Ted Meyerson, AARP Maryland’s lead fraud volunteer, and Clay Campbell of consumer protection organization Greater Maryland Better Business Bureau join the show and bust myths about scams and fraud.
There are about 50 public charter schools in Maryland, educating roughly 24,000 students. 30 of these schools, over half of the total number, are in Baltimore.
For some time, there has been a heated debate about funding formulas for public charter schools. Charter schools are independently operated under a contract, or charter, with individual public school systems.
Last May, a group of charter schools said they were in danger of closing because some of these systems withheld funding.
Will McKenna, the former co-chair of the Maryland Alliance of Public Charter Schools, recently worked with the state education officials, including State Schools Superintendent Carey Wright, to create a better deal for the state's charter schools. He joins Midday to discuss those negotiations and what they mean for the future.
McKenna is founder and the executive director of Afya Baltimore, which operates two charter schools in Baltimore.
Dr. Hahrie Han is a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University and the inaugural director of the SNF Agora Institute.
Her research focuses on civic and political participation, organizing to social change.
Last week, she was named to the 2025 class of MacArthur Foundation Fellows. She and 21 others were each awarded an $800,000, no-strings-attached grant, often called 'genius grants.'
The executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council reacts to Monday's release by Hamas of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza, amid a fragile ceasefire agreement and uncertainty about an Israel-Palestine peace.
Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom now for another of her weekly reviews of Baltimore regional theater. Today, she spotlights Hamlet/Black Parade, now on stage at The Mercury Theater, an artist-run performance space in the heart of Baltimore's Station North Arts District.
Produced by the creative team of Motte & Bailey and adapted and directed by Hannah Fogler, Hamlet/Black Parade is a unique musical interpretation / mash-up of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and alt-rock band My Chemical Romance's classic "The Black Parade" album.
Tom's first guest today is Shankar Vedantam, the creator and host of Hidden Brain, a weekly podcast and radio show heard every Sunday afternoon at 2:00 here on WYPR.
Shankar is coming to the Lyric Theater in Baltimore Saturday night with his Hidden Brain Perceptions Tour, a live event that's traveling cross country to celebrate ten years of this award-winning program.
The animating question since the inception of Hidden Brain has been: Are there parts of our minds that are hidden from us?
Shankar joins Tom on Zoom from Washington, DC, to share some of the insights he's gained from a decade of Hidden Brain explorations.
If you have questions or comments for Shankar, you're welcome to join us!
Email us at midday@wypr.org or call us at 401.662.8780.
The Hidden Brain Perceptions Tour comes to the Lyric Theater in Baltimore Saturday night. The show starts at 7pm. For ticketing information, click here.
Carole King was a 19-year-old songwriter from Brooklyn when she wrote "Take Good Care of My Baby" for the pop singer Bobby Vee. In 1961, the song would become one of nineteen Top-Ten hits Carole King would go on to write for other artists over four decades.
Ten years after that hit, King recorded an iconic album as a performer that garnered multiple hits for herself. Tapestry was an international sensation. It won four Grammy awards, and established Carole King as a force in pop music whose impact and influence are boundless.
Welcome to Midday. Tom's guest for the hour is journalist and author, Jane Eisner, who has written a scrupulously detailed and illuminating new biography of one of most influential American singer-songwriters of the 20th century.
The book is called Carole King: She Made the Earth Move.
Recent reporting shed light on a forgotten graveyard in Prince George’s County, part of a dark chapter in Maryland history.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the cemetery was the final resting place for young people held at the House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children—a detention center for Black youth.
The property is now home to a number of state buildings, including the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center.
State Sen. Will Smith, a Democrat from Montgomery County, was part of a delegation of lawmakers who visited the site recently. He joins Midday to talk about what he saw.
A proposal by the Trump administration to severely limit the number of legal refugees, people who have been vetted and who have followed the rules to enter the country properly, would be a huge setback for thousands of people hoping to escape difficult conditions in their home countries.
Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have continued their crackdowns on immigrants living in the United States without legal status.
For insights into the latest immigration news Midday is joined by Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the President & CEO of Global Refuge, a refugee resettlement organization based here in Baltimore.
Each year, Baltimore’s 14 largest nonprofit institutions, places like Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland Medical Center, contribute an annual payment to the city referred to as PILOTs, or Payment in Lieu of Taxes.
Because nonprofit entities are not subject to taxes, these nonprofits make voluntary payments which have, for the last several decades, been negotiated with the city every 10 years.
Last week, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott announced that the city had negotiated a new PILOT agreement for five years that will gradually increase the annual payments to $12 million a year by the end of the agreement.
But some say the increase is still not enough considering the huge wealth these institutions steward. And questions have been raised by critics who say this new agreement was not reached transparently.
Baltimore City Councilwoman Phylicia Porter Midday to discuss the agreement and what it means for the city. Porter sought to create a PILOT taskforce to study what an agreement could look like. The Mayor signed a deal before the bill creating the task force was put to the council for a vote.
Katie Pumphrey became the first person to complete the 24-mile swim from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in 2024. She previously swum around the Island of Manhattan and three times across the English Channel.
Her love of the open water inspires her visual artistry. A new exhibit at the Creative Alliance through October 11 is called “Swimming Pool."
In a Midday exclusive, Rep. Johnny Olszewski (D., Md 02) discusses the government shutdown, and the bill he's introduced to help the state's federal workers weather the shutdown's financial storm.
On today's Midday Healthwatch, Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency room physician and health columnist for the Washington Post, counters government claims of Tylenol-autism links, and discusses recent changes in federal vaccine policies.
Midday at the Movies is live at the 2025 New Next Film Festival here at the historic Charles Theatre in Baltimore.
We take a look behind the scenes and behind the screens, talking with the creators of the New/Next Festival and some of the filmmakers whose work will be showcased over the weekend.
Sam Sessa and Eric Hatch are the co-founders of the New/Next Film Festival. Sessa is a WTMD music host and the Director of Community Events and Community Engagement for Baltimore Public Media.
Hatch is a renowned film and music curator here in Baltimore. He serves as New/Next’s director of programming, and screened some 700 film submissions to assemble this year’s extraordinary festival lineup.
Jed Dietz joins the panel. He is the founding director of the Maryland Film Festival.
The festival's filmmakers joining Midday are Daniel Christian (Possum Town), Jamyla Krempel (Dwelling), Sam Pollard (Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power) and Leah Clare Michaels (Moon Crab).
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott joins Midday to discuss a new agreement between the city and large educational and medical nonprofits to make payments in lieu of taxes. Does the deal satisfy advocates who say institutions like Johns Hopkins University are not paying their fair share? The agreement comes as members of the City Council attempted to assemble a task force to recommend what anchor institutions should pay.
Plus, a discussion of a controversial package of zoning laws intended to boost the availability of affordable housing. In an unusual move, two of the bills in the package have been sent back to the committee that had already approved them.
Kim Wehle joins Midday to look ahead to the upcoming docket of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Wehle is a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, the author of four books, an in-demand public speaker and commentator, and the host of a popular Substack she calls The Little Law School with Professor Kim Wehle, where she unpacks legal headlines and offers timely perspectives on politics and the law.
Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom with another of her weekly reviews of the Baltimore regional stage. Today, she tells us about the new touring company production of Water for Elephants, the hit Broadway musical that's now onstage at Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre.
The 2024 musical, which was nominated for seven Tony Awards including Best Musical, tells the story of young Jacob Jankowski who, after experiencing a family tragedy, moves on to find a new life with a traveling circus during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The show features exciting circus acrobatics, original music, and intricate puppetry to tell its tale of love and personal survival.
The musical's original direction is by Jessica Stone, with a book by Rick Elice and music by PigPen Theatre Co., based on the novel by Sara Gruen.
Water for Elephants continues at The Hippodrome Theatre through Saturday, October 4.
Reginald Moore, the Director of Baltimore City’s Recreation and Parks Department, joins Midday to discuss the wide array of facilities and resources he shepherds.
Moore oversees an ever-evolving list of 51 recreation centers, 4 dog parks, 3 skate parks and more than 4,700 acres of parkland in 262 parks. That portfolio includes everything from the Greenmount Recreation Center’s AI youth computer lab to Druid Hill Park, which has been under construction for a long time.
Moore discusses upgrades to several recreational centers and parks, and the latest on construction at Druid Hill Park and the opening of the pedestrian loop around Druid Lake.
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